Netease hopes to restore glory of portal

Netease directs its attention to once familiar model-- web portal and online advertising in a new move, aiming to restore the glory of news-based model and find another profit pillar besides online games.

Yang Bin, the newly named Vice President, will be in charge of content and marketing concerning news and online ad, which is a sign of Netease's return to its portal business.

It's not simply "private reasons" for the resignation of its Chief Operating Officer Dong Ruibao. Dong's leave is the result of poor performance in its content construction and online advertising. Once conferred on the power to build its news and information content, Dong was the choice of Ding Lei, the CEO of Netease Co. But as a result Netease didn't see a large growth in its ad business, and Netease is facing a growing gap with its once rivals Sina and Sohu.

Boasting as one of the top three web portals in China, Netease was just the third in the list. When it faced a dilemma in the so-called "winter of IT" in 2000, Netease began to develop its game sector, which lifts the company and shows good performance even encountering financial woes.

Also at that time the company began to slash its content department with several departments closed. Today when it is deeply in the red sea of online games, it suddenly finds the value of online advertising.

Affected by its community culture and unbridled freedom in news entertainment, Netease's news never become serious and professional. It's the company that is eager to cover every details in the fake tiger photo scandal, which did attact a lot of eyeballs and page views. After that, Netease is not a news portal but basically an entertainment site. The web users of Netease are engaged in Kuso, self-satisfaction and Mo lei tau way of abreaction.

The news portal business of Netease becomes nothing important with poor ad performance. As Sina and Sohu dug deeper in news content, Netease is no more a competent rival. More companies join the news business and newcomer QQ poised a threat to the growing market. Netease is not a legend any more in this sector just like ever Tom.com.